Nameless
by rumflavouredkisses
Summary: At first glance it appears to be a pile of dirty sheets, leather draped across the top. Only a detailed inspection would reveal its true nature, the form of a person a man to be precise.


Fic title: Nameless (that's the actual name)  
  
Chapter number: One Shot fic  
  
Fic pairing(s): ?  
  
Fic rating: Probably PG-13  
  
Fic summary: *yet to be determined*  
  
Disclaimer(s): Unfair it seems, all characters belong to the mouse.  
  
At first glance it appears to be a pile of dirty sheets, leather draped across the top. Only a detailed inspection would reveal its true nature, the form of a person a man to be precise. Occasionally he moves, rolls over or just shifts his clothes, disturbing a smell of dank alcohol into the air. Mainly though, he just sits there, unmoving, silent as the grave.  
  
Where and when he appeared, no one can really remember. Most townsfolk became accustomed to him long ago, his arrival now a distant memory. He was a fixture of the town as much as the buildings he sat between. They did remember him being younger, more mobile, frequently missing. At first he made recurrent trips to the tavern, a few doors up, where he would drink anything and everything he could lay his hands on. Everything except rum. Depending on the amount of liquor he secured in a night, the man would sometimes tell of why he had such an aversion to the most common form of alcohol in the Caribbean. Yet this was told in a sketchy manner, the bittersweet memories stirred when the liquid passed his lips. The warm burn was a scorching pain and the sweet taste had long since become toxic. His lost true love lived in those bottles, a figure of his past (always nameless), the first he ever professed love for. Someone who had been given the chance to return to him and never had. The exact meeting place was also unknown, but every frequent patron of the tavern knew that for days the man waited, against the advice of his friends, fuelled by desperate hope, until it was ridiculous to prevent departure further. He never returned to his love, after having been discarded his pride prevented it, but never a day passed when he didn't think of that now shadowy figure. How rum fitted to the tale, not a single person knew.it was one of his many mysteries, along with the ending to one particular tale...one that begun with the promotion of a Commodore.  
  
Often the man's flamboyant tales were detailed, yet he never finished that tale with the exaggerated detail he employed with the others. And many other stories there were, ones he liked to tell in the hope people would quench his thirst in a desire to hear more.  
  
As time passed the tales became oft repeated and drove away listeners instead of attracting them, and exciting stories of adventure became incoherent ramblings. The proud legacy nothing more than a barely audible mesh of fragmented memories. He began to drink less, but it seemed less was needed, as he lived almost permanently in the stupor of a life long drinker. His visits to the tavern also dwindled, until often he only appeared to purchase a large bottle of drink before going to sit on the docks.  
  
His other favoured spot in town was to sit at the docks with the ships. At first this had been impossible, he was deemed untrustworthy, some unknown stranger with no home or employment. Yet eventually he was considered unable to commandeer a ship, unable even to reach one, and he was given the freedom to perch on the wooden planks, swinging his legs in the water, as he called almost indecipherably, names no one recognised. "Bootstrap, Pearl, Turner" All featured, along with one word which cropped up more rarely, but was always pronounced clearly, and louder than the others. "Captain. Captain."  
  
Some assumed this was his former position; some felt it to be his true love. Some just thought, that like the implausible tales he told, it was nothing more than some shattered fragment of a twisted imagination.  
  
After all, the battles he told of, escapades he boasted to have had, all were as plausible as him being a Commodore of the British fleet.  
  
For sometime he remained on the docks, never moving, neither day or night, until guards deemed him a nuisance so he returned to the streets, a dingy back alley where only a few saw him and heard his muddled pleas.  
  
His origins were as much as a mystery as his name, his life story as obscure as the length of his stay on the island; man was an enigma. No one really cared enough to pursue him for information. The only kindness he received was that of an old woman, whose pity for him spurred her into bringing him the occasional meal. The only interest in him was by those who sought to mock and hurt him. His life passed under the uncaring, unseeing eye of a town with more important concerns.  
  
Which was why it took two days to notice the man appeared so deathly still because his current state was actually dead. Even then they only noticed because they tripped over his wrist as it stuck out from his body, the only exposed flesh of the man anyone had seen in years. The stench made it impossible to get close enough to him to truly make out the inky markings on his dirty grey skin. The unmistakeable shape of a sunburst, a sparrow flying before it. 


End file.
